San Jose fire fighters on top of a ladder truck look at the remains of IBM�s Building 25 in San Jose where an early morning fire destroyed the building that has been vacant for some time. On Saturday March 7 2008
Photo By Kurt Rogers / San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: Kurt Rogers

San Jose fire fighters on top of a ladder truck look at the remains...

Image 2 of 3

The remains of IBM�s Building 25 in San Jose where an early morning fire destroyed the building that has been vacant for some time. On Saturday March 7 2008
Photo By Kurt Rogers / San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: Kurt Rogers

The remains of IBM�s Building 25 in San Jose where an early...

Image 3 of 3

Building 25, part of the IBM complex at 5600 Cottle Road in San Jose, Calif., is unused in June 2005. The historic building, built in 1957, was destroyed in a three-alarm fire on March 8, 2008. Photo by Susan Brandt-Hawley / Courtesy to The Chronicle

A three-alarm fire of unknown origin on Saturday destroyed a historic IBM building in San Jose famed for being the birthplace of a precursor of the hard drive - and the center of a development fight over whether to level it to build a home-improvement store.

The fire raged for eight hours after being reported at 1:32 a.m., prompting 75 firefighters to respond to the scene. The structure, known as Building 25, was engulfed in flames, and a large plume of smoke billowed from the blaze. Part of an IBM complex at 5600 Cottle Road, the 69,000-square-foot structure was built in 1957 and has been vacant since 1996.

The fire was under control at 9:45 a.m., and the building was "a total loss," said Capt. Anthony Pianto with the San Jose Fire Department. No neighboring buildings were damaged, and there were no injuries. The monetary loss isn't known, he said.

The department's arson investigators were on the scene and special county and state arson investigators may be called in, though they haven't been yet, he said.

"Because of the size of the building and the amount of damage and charring, it's going to take a while to determine the cause or even the point of origin - where the fire actually started," Pianto said.

The structure was at least the fourth historic building to go up in flames in San Jose since last summer.

In November, a man died in a blaze at the Hori Midwifery building, a historic boarding house and onetime home to a midwifery practice on North Fifth Street in Japantown. In January, a fire destroyed the Porter Stock Building, a former livery business, on South First Street.

Pianto did not have immediate information on the outcomes of the investigations into those fires but said there is no indication they are linked.

Fight over demolition

The city of San Jose approved the demolition of Building 25 in 2003 to make way for a 180,000-square-foot Lowe's store, which the city said would bring in half a million dollars a year in sales tax revenue.

The city's Preservation Action Council, a private nonprofit group, twice sued the city over the issue, arguing Lowe's wouldn't lose much money by building a smaller store and allowing Building 25 to stay. The council also said the city didn't evaluate alternatives to knocking down the structure.

Settlement was near

The two sides were on the brink of reaching a settlement that would have preserved a representative portion of Building 25 and allowed Lowe's to be built with slightly less space for parking, according to Susan Brandt-Hawley, who specializes in environmental and preservation law and is representing the Preservation Action Council in the fight.

Brant-Hawley said the council hopes that the settlement can proceed and that the representative portion of Building 25 can be rebuilt.

She called the fire devastating and said the council suspects arson. She said that the structure was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, as well as state and city landmark status, but that IBM chose not to have it listed.

"There's no question about the historic significance of this building," she said.

The preservation council wanted the building spared because it was the birthplace of the flying disk drive, considered a significant advance in information-storage technology and a precursor to the development of the hard drive.

The building also was hailed by preservationists as a model for future Silicon Valley high-tech office developments. Designed by John Bolles of Berkeley, it consisted of six wings and had glass walls allowing the integration of work spaces with outside landscaping. It was noted for its natural light, gardens and modern art collection.

Building stood empty

Colleen Haikes, a spokeswoman for IBM, which backed the city plan and Lowe's, said the company doesn't consider Building 25 to have historical significance, especially compared with another IBM building 10 miles away at 99 Notre Dame Ave.

IBM says 99 Notre Dame's significance ranks alongside that of Hewlett-Packard's famed garage in Silicon Valley lore, and Haikes said the company doesn't attach nearly as much significance to Building 25.

"The company has said that 99 Notre Dame is the site that we've commemorated, and Building 25 is an unoccupied site that we were not looking to renovate," she said.

She said the company doesn't know the monetary extent of the loss and has no information on whether the fire could have been intentionally set.

"The fire department hasn't given us anything," she said. "They'd have the best idea of the cause."